AuCoin nomination stirs up Salem

Candidate for forestry post criticized for Goldschmidt support

By Jim Redden

The Portland Tribune, Mar 4, 2005, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Les AuCoin’s defense of disgraced former power broker Neil Goldschmidt may come back to haunt him in the Oregon Senate.

State Sen. Vicki Walker, D-Eugene, said she will try to block AuCoin’s appointment to the Oregon Board of Forestry because he defended Goldschmidt’s leadership record in a newspaper column shortly after Goldschmidt admitted sexually abusing a young girl when he was mayor of Portland in the 1970s.

“That says a lot about AuCoin’s judgment,” said Walker, who has been one of Goldschmidt’s most outspoken critics. Walker sent a letter to her Senate colleagues Wednesday calling the column “incredibly offensive.”

AuCoin, a former Portland-area Democratic state representative and congressman, declined to respond directly to Walker’s comments. But AuCoin said he stood by his praise of Goldschmidt’s accomplishments in the May 14, 2004, column in The Eugene Register-Guard. AuCoin also said in the column that he remains Goldschmidt’s friend.

“I still say his criminal acts were a triple tragedy Ñ a tragedy for the woman, a tragedy for Goldschmidt’s family and a tragedy for Oregonians who will not be able to profit from Goldschmidt’s leadership in the future,” he said.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski nominated AuCoin to the seven-member forestry board on Monday, which oversees the state’s forestry policies.

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